


In Between it All

by InterstellarVagabond



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Donna Noble Remembers, Gen, ahead of canon, campy scifi, literally based off someone else's dream, tenth doctor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 18:26:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20050546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarVagabond/pseuds/InterstellarVagabond
Summary: Ten always was a bit vain, so when the Doctor sees one of her old friends in trouble just at the brink of regeneration, she tosses on an old face to go and see what he can do about it.This is literally a fic based off a post spacemancharisma on tumblr made about a dream they had, once they added the art I was sold





	In Between it All

**Author's Note:**

> three things  
1\. I tried to incorporate everything from this post (https://interstellarvagabond.tumblr.com/post/186633365719/i-considered-writing-a-like-coherent-post-about)  
while still making a coherent story  
2\. I may have accidentally borrowed from Sense 8 and Shape of Water but JK Rowling borrowed from JRR Tolkein who borrowed from Odin so that's just how subconscious (or conscious looking at you Rowling) stealing works  
3\. watching Doctor Who for the first time in years to get into the right mindset for this fic, after watching Good Omens three times, was a trip

She had just been about to regenerate when the distress call came in. 

Well, it was sort of a distress call. It certainly  _ caused _ a great deal of distress, though it didn't follow traditional distress call rules. Because, usually, when a distress call comes in it comes from the person experiencing the distress not the ones causing it.

No, this really was less of a distress call and more of a notification of impending hostage negotiation.

"Well, that won't do," she said through gritted teeth, golden light already weaving itself around her body. "Can't just leave her like that… oh, but this is bad timing! Or wait… no, what if it's good timing?"

A smile worked it's way onto lips already starting to change their shape. "Yes! Good timing! Might need a familiar face… now how do I go about doing that?"

She mused to herself, remembering not too long ago when she heard from a very reliable source that she might find herself revisiting some of the old classic faces someday. She could feel an opening, right there between thirteen and fourteen there was just enough time for a rerun before the regeneration really took.

"Going to have to get used to all that leg again!" She laughed exuberantly, and then she changed.

Steph was wondering if her boss would notice her closing up early when the bell on the door rang and a strange man strode in through the door muttering to himself.

"... everything's about five inches too short, and suspenders again what was I thinking? Always with the little quirky…. Uh… quirks. I do like the coat though…"

Steph quietly reached for the pepper spray in her purse.

_ Why me?  _ She thought.  _ All the weirdos have to end up in this thrift shop? I should have finished school. _

The man eyed up a pair of pants with rips that could be intentional, maybe, snagged a heavy dark green jacket and a pair of worn boots. Steph eyed up the exit as he tore off to the dressing room.

Minutes later the man came back, his old ill-fitting clothes folded over one arm and his new ragged thrift store clothes somehow looking more stylish just by him wearing them. For a moment he stared at Steph and Steph stared back, then he jumped as if coming back from a daydream and started patting down the pockets of the coat he’d taken off.

“Right! Money!” he said. “Don’t suppose you’d take off-world currency?”

“Just go,” Steph said weakly.

“Oh, really?” he grinned, tossing his head to the side. 

“Yeah.” she nodded.

“That’s quite nice of you, thanks,” he said. “I’d leave you all this in trade but, I kinda like hanging on to the old ones. Nostalgic, you know, but the third wardrobe got lost sometime during the last remodel so I couldn’t find… you don’t know what I’m talking about, sorry, still kind of…” he made a gesture by his head that was supposed to mean: still kind of adjusting to the regeneration and a little dizzy and disoriented from the regenerative energy. 

Steph interpreted it as: crazy.

He didn’t stick around much longer, places to go and an old friend to save. He stopped just long enough to toss his old clothes through the TARDIS doors before running off. 

There was always so much running, thank god he was back on the long legs. 

  
  


Donna Temple-Noble was having an extraordinarily bad day, and she was about to make it everyone else’s problem.

“Let me out of here!” she shouted, fighting against her restraints as best she could but only causing the chair she was tied to to wobble slightly. “Are you even listening to me? Get back here and face me you cowards!”

She peeked out the tiny window in the door, then the larger window to her right, trying to catch a glimpse of the people that had thrown a bag over her head and shoved her in a car. She had no clue what they wanted with her, they’d been silent the whole time, and now here she was tied up on what had to be a boat based on how the room was swaying. That, or she’d hit her head on the top of the car door a bit harder than she’d thought.

Her shouting was in vain, because even if her captors subscribed to the idea of spoken language they were not on the boat.

They were beneath it.

Beneath the dark waters long polluted by humanity’s touch, something very not human was lurking. A long tail, eel-like and dark blue with leopard spots, twisted past until it found itself wrapped around another, and then another. Four creatures, strangers to Earth’s waters, entwined themselves and waited for the trap to spring. 

The Doctor was staring down at a screen in his hand as he walked, to any passerby it would simply look like he was particularly invested in his cellphone, maybe trying to get a new high score in Candy Crush. Anyone familiar with alien technology, however, would recognize the device as half a signal tracker and a personal computer all cobbled together with a complete lack of respect for the warranty of both products. 

“Where are you…” he hissed to himself, running a finger over the screen to flick away the map that kept jumping around trying to find the source of the message. He pulled up the video he’d originally received, brow furrowing as it played through on a loop.

There was no sound, just a video of Donna. The Doctor’s lips quirked into half a grin as he thought about how loud this video would be were there sound, she was clearly yelling her head off. The grin didn’t last long, and quickly fitted itself back into a frown. This was one of his friends in trouble, one of his friends who was supposed to be living unbothered by him. He’d done enough to her already, and now someone was trying to use her to get to him and that wasn’t fair. 

Suddenly his body jerked, and he stumbled throwing out a hand to steady himself on a nearby wall. The device went clattering to the ground, flashing in protest.

“Nngh…” he groaned, and his lips formed a word all on their own. “Eight…”

“You alright mate?” a concerned man asked, eyeing over the doubled over stranger. “You need me to call you a cab?”

“Fine, thanks,” the Doctor waved him off, and then put his hand to his forehead. Counting, he was counting… something… 

Probably his brain knew subconsciously how much time he had left in this form and was trying to communicate this to him, but the knowledge was getting all jumbled up in his neural pathways. Eight what? Eight days? Hours? Minutes?

Hopefully it was closer to the first ones. 

He picked up the device and switched back to the map, watching as it started to focus more and more on one specific location. 

“Alright, Donna Noble,” he said under his breath. “I’m coming to get you.”

The device led him down to the docks, and he pulled up the video again trying to match Donna’s surroundings to something in the area. He was still trying to pick a boat when he heard the shouting.

“Right, that one,” he said, running for the boat in question. He’d barely taken three steps when something lunged out of the water and landed on the dock next to him, grabbing his ankle and sending him toppling over onto his face.

He kicked out, trying to wiggle free of the grasp. Luckily, whatever was holding him was slippery, so it wasn’t too hard to do. He got back to his feet, too angry and worried about the situation to be properly curious about what he was facing. So instead of turning around he kept running for the boat. 

He heard heavy thuds of more things leaping up onto the dock, one of which landed in front of him.

The creature twisted about to face him, and opened a mouth full of teeth like needles and screeched. 

The Doctor pulled an angry face, and then he hunched his shoulders and screeched back. 

The creature seemed unaffected, and whipped about trying to trip the Doctor with his tail. The Doctor mistimed his jump and fell for not the first time in the past minute. 

“Ugh…” The Doctor groaned in pain and embarrassment. “... seven…”

The countdown he still only half understood made him focus back on the task at hand. Rescue Donna, then deal with the slimy black-eyed merpeople.

He tumbled over the side of the boat, and ran straight for the first door he saw, hearing the wet slap of underwater creatures on land close behind him. He tore open the door and slammed it behind him. 

As he struggled to catch his breath his eyes fell on the other person in the room, the one that was staring at him in shock. 

The Doctor found himself robbed of words as he stared at one of his best friends, and quite possibly one of his greatest mistakes.

Donna was not robbed of words.

“Oi! You!” she shouted. “What the hell is going on here?”

There was a bang on the door, and The Doctor used his sonic to lock it before snapping Donna’s restraints. Donna didn’t even look impressed, just rubbed her wrists and huffed.

“What, you my rescue party or my kidnapper, which one?” she asked.

“Rescue party, obviously! Why… why would your kidnapper let you go?” The Doctor searched the room for some other exit. Or at least, he tried to, but Donna put a hand on his shoulder and whirled him around.

“What’s. Going. On?” she snapped.

“I. Don’t. Know. Yet!” he snapped right back. “I…” there was another bang at the door and Donna jumped.

The Doctor looked from the door back to her, and it hit him all at once how much he’d missed her. 

“The window,” she said. “We can get out through the window.”

“Right, ladies first,” he said pushing past her before pausing and laughing. “Oh, wait, I’m not… sorry, you first.”

Donna gave him a look and then went for the window. 

They ran for the walkway back to the dock, though Donna did pause to scream as one of the creatures lunged at her. The Doctor watched with mild curiosity as the creature suddenly reared up, tail splitting into legs. 

“Oh, there goes the running advantage,” The Doctor said, stepping between Donna and the creature. “Well, doesn’t matter since I’m really done running from you.”

The creature took a step forward, and three others joined it in flopping up onto the deck and then metamorphosing into a bipedal shape. 

The first creature took another step forward, and so did The Doctor.

“Alright, normally this is the part where I ask who you are and what you want,” he said. “But I don’t have a lot of time and you’ve done something very stupid. You’ve made this personal, you've made me angry. So I’m going to give you a  _ chance _ to back down now. This could go well for you, so take a minute and think… how do you want this to go?”

The nearest creature tilted its head to the side, two sets of black eyes blinking with sideways eyelids. It didn’t say anything.

“Those… those are  _ fish people _ ,” Donna hissed unhelpfully. 

“Yeah, I got that, thanks,” The Doctor said, before addressing the creatures again. “Well?”

“They haven’t got any ears,” Donna added.

“There’s a lot of weird things going on with their bodies, yes,” The Doctor replied in exasperation. 

“No! I mean,” Donna rolled her eyes and looked at him like he was an idiot. “I mean I don’t think they can hear you.”

The Doctor turned back to her in surprise, then back at the creatures. Sure enough, there was a sense of confusion about them, like they could tell something was happening but couldn’t properly react. 

The lead creature took another step forward and reached out with a hand webbed and clawed. The Doctor eyed it suspiciously, but when the creature made no move to attack he drew a bit closer. 

The creature glanced at him almost nervously, and then pressed the tip of one claw to his forehead. 

Images flashed through his mind, almost too fast to comprehend. First there was the creatures all curled up together in some bright ocean, then there was a flash of light and a strange new place that burned his skin, and there was so many familiar things turned unfamiliar, and then there was the TARDIS, and then Donna, and then the images shifted into static and showed Donna again with one of the creatures touching her forehead the way they were touching the Doctor’s now.

The creature pulled away, and the Doctor opened his eyes with a gasp. 

“Did it… just mindmeld with you?” Donna asked.

“Not now, Donna, they’re a they not an-” The Doctor choked back the same words he’d said to her so long ago and yet so far in humanity’s distant future on a snow covered planet with a dying ood in front of them. “Yeah, though, touch-based telepathy, kinda fuzzy, don’t think it works very well cross-species.”

“Well, what did they say?” Donna pressed. 

“I’m… I’m not really su-” the Doctor winced suddenly, doubling over and coughing up tendrils of gold regeneration energy. “Hng… four… four? What happened to six and five?”

He felt hands on him, and realized Donna was helping him stand. She looked terrified, and confused, a little angry, but mostly she looked worried. She’d always had the most amazing capacity for compassion, 

“Alright…” the Doctor took a steadying breath, addressing the creatures. "You want to talk, let me see what I can do."

He was about to reach for the one in front of him when all four creatures turned their eyes to the sky and winced. They leapt off the deck of the ship, legs becoming tails once more. The Doctor looked up and made a noise of understanding. 

The sun was rising. Must be light sensitive, or somehow adverse to it.

"I am having… the weirdest night…" Donna said. 

"Weirdest morning now," the Doctor said.

"Can I go?" She asked. "Are they going to like… come back for me? Not that I want to go just yet, just good to know, right?"

"They won't bother you anymore," the Doctor promised. "I'll make sure of that."

"And who exactly are you?" Donna asked. "Showing up out of nowhere to save the day."

"Not important," the Doctor said quickly. He flexed his hand, wondering if it might be better to wipe her memory of this too. Too many encounters with him, it really risked dredging it all up again. He could do it now, wipe her mind and take her home, but selfishly he wanted to leave it be at least for now. One last adventure together, one she could keep.

That selfish part of him buried deep in his hearts was lashed out at immediately. He knew what he was risking by leaving her those memories, and it was better to let her live in blissful ignorance than try and relive the glory days.

"Well… it's bloody cold out here, what you wanna go grab breakfast and wait for the return of the fish people?" Donna asked with a shrug.

"You wanna stick around to see your kidnappers again?" the Doctor asked in disbelief.

"Well, they need help don't they?" She said with a shrug. "And I need to give them a piece of my mind anyway. So, breakfast?"

Funny thing, pretending you don't know everything about a person. That they didn't once know almost everything about you. What was supposed to be catching up over mediocre eggs and surprisingly fantastic coffee was an introduction, half an explanation, and a bit of staring until Donna brought him back to reality with a slap on the arm. He told her his name was Smith and she clearly didn't believe him but let him get away with it anyway. As many questions as she asked he deflected, and she rolled her eyes and pushed and he tsked and deflected harder.

"So, fish people at the docks tonight then?" She asked as they parted ways. She'd paid the bill and he'd paid the price of hearing her chastise him for not having any money.

"Yeah," he said, trying to be casual. "Soon as the sun goes down."

"You gonna make it till then?"

"What?"

She looked him over. "All breathing gold mist and fainting?"

"I didn't  _ faint _ !" He huffed. "I'll be fine."

"Alright then, skinny," she said. "Just be upright when we finish this tonight."

He waved her off, teeth clenched. He could just regenerate and figure out the fish people on his own now. There was really no reason to slip back into this face anyway he was just… well… sentimental. It was one of his favorites and it was the face she knew. It was also the face she knew now, and if he regenerated and showed up to their meeting looking different it would pop the seal on his little memory repression for sure.

He should just regenerate and deal with the fish people alone.

But that vision of Donna with a webbed claw against her forehead that wasn't a memory like the others, he could tell. It wasn't a memory it was… something else… an offer, a promise, something yet to come, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious.

"Three," he sighed, skin glimmering just a bit golden.

The docks were quiet and the moon was rising. Donna was waiting and shivering by a pile of crates, considering pulling out her phone and doing a quick run through Facebook when someone popped up behind her.

"Hullo!"

Donna shrieked and hit the Doctor rather hard in the face. He swore and staggered backwards as she gasped.

"Don't sneak up on me!" She shouted.

"Who did you think it was?" He shouted back, clutching his face. "You hit everyone who says hi to you?"

"I'll hit you again, don't test me!" Donna said.

Before the Doctor could get a word in edgewise they were interrupted by the sound of something large and wet hitting the dock.

"Right on time," the Doctor said.

It was just one of them, fanned out fins on the side of their head and dark eyes blinking curiously. It opened and closed a mouth of thin teeth like it was tasting the air, and then it rose up on two fresh legs.

"That is still so weird…" Donna said. "Never saw that in  _ The Little Mermaid _ ."

"Welcome back…" the Doctor mused mainly to himself, knowing their visitor didn't hear him. He stepped forward, not flinching when the creature pressed a claw tip to his forehead.

The images passed through his mind again, accompanied by sensations and emotions all just a bit too strong to feel. He was one of them, then he was all four. 

_ Cluster _ suggested a voice in his mind, supplying the word for the creatures all wrapped up together tails entwined. They were younger then, and then the flash of light and so much pain and fear at being in the wrong place… no not place, something else...

Then the TARDIS and Donna stepping forward so they could press a claw tip to her forehead, and it all went dark as the creature pulled away.

"I don't understand…" the Doctor sighed in frustration. "I don't understand what they're trying to say!"

"What, what'd they do?" Donna asked. "What did they show you?"

"Just their home, I think, and… other things," he trailed off not touching the forbidden words that would make her brain explode. "I don't know what they want from me."

"Well, that's obviously, they want you to take them home," Donna said.

"They…" the Doctor slapped his forehead. "Oh, you're right it's obvious! They're not in the wrong place they're in the wrong  _ time _ they're displaced in time! Why else ask me for help of all people?"

"Mermaids and time travel, great," Donna said, eyes narrowing slightly and lips pulling into a frown. 

"You have to show me when!" the Doctor insisted, grabbing the creature's hand and pressing it back to his forehead. He tried to project it back into their thoughts, the question of what time they needed to go to. He saw an ocean, bright and endless, and he saw the cluster, siblings of a sort maybe? No, different than that. 

The creature recoiled with a screech, shaking its hand like they had been burned by the Doctor's intrusion into their thoughts. "Oh dear, sorry," the Doctor winced guiltily. "Clumsy… haven't had to do that in a long time I'm so sorry."

"Time…" Donna mused.

"Yeah, got the time," the Doctor said. "I know exactly where to take them… when to take them."

"Time… lord," Donna said, and the Doctor's head whipped around. 

"No! No, no, no!" His arms were reaching out before she even fell. She shuddered in his arms, tears of pain and confusion in her eyes.

"Don't think about it," he said, pressing fingers to her temple and trying to block out the thoughts. She was feverish, he didn't have much time to try and undo the damage he'd done.

Unfortunately, that's when a wave of pain hit him and sent him tumbling to the ground choking on regenerative energy.

"T-two," he gasped, unable to stand back up. Him and Donna both were laying, dying on the dock, the only difference is he would survive it. He tried to reach out for her, but he could barely move. He couldn't even force the regeneration on and get it over with, he was stuck and even if he wasn't it would be too late, and even if it wasn't too late a blast of energy like that would blow up the docks. 

His eyes flicked over to the creature currently panicking and wringing their hands. 

"Please," he pleaded. 

The creature hesitated only a moment, and then it grabbed the Doctor's hand.

Everything was black, and then it was blue.

The Doctor opened his eyes to a world of water, and when he turned his head he could see the creature holding his hand. 

Just on the other side of the creature was Donna, red hair floating in the water and eyes wide with amazement. The creature was holding her hand too. 

There were more of them, hundreds of them all swimming past in little groups. The Doctor saw three others swim up to them and take turns nuzzling their faces against the creature holding his hand. They entwined their tails and closed their eyes and that had to be how they communicated, that's what a cluster was. A group of like minds all entwined together sharing all the secrets they might have, their whole lives laid bare in the most intimate trust. 

And the Doctor could hear them speaking.

There was a vision of their home, there was a vision of the river of polluted waters burning their skin and a sun- a different sun one much older than the one that formed anew for a planet that refused to die. They missed it so much, they wanted to swim in clean waters and commune with other clusters, they were in pain and they were lonely.

He realized now why they'd taken Donna, they needed him to come and they needed him to bargain: one trip to the far flung future in exchange for the unlocked and entirely safe memories of his friend.

He was in no state to agree to their terms but it didn't matter. They were communal creatures, they were born for compassion, and even if it meant losing their bargaining chip they had to help.

The creature took Donna and the Doctor's hands and lay them over each other between their own. The Doctor felt something surge from Donna into him and then he was gasping for air laying on his back on the dock.

Someone was shouting his name, and as his vision cleared he realized there were two faces leaning over him. One was the creature, and the other was Donna.

"Doctor!"

"Yeah, I hear you," he groaned, rubbing at his head. Then he realized what Donna had just said, and sat up so fast he almost slammed their heads together.

"Donna?" He cried. 

"Doctor!" She answered with a grin.

"But you can't know me you can't…" he struggled to find the words.

"All that timelord brain and you can't even figure out a little scifi nonsense like this?" Donna teased.

"They did something, reversed the meta-crisis, no… they just… pulled the me out of you… oh that sounds-"

"Bad, it sounds really bad," Donna agreed. 

"But it worked!" He grabbed her face and then her shoulders as if she might disappear and he had to keep checking she was still really there. "It worked! You remember and your brain isn't a big puddle of icky goo!"

"Don't talk about my brain being gooey." She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Look, you going to take Nemo here home or what?"

The creature was still staring at him in concern, and the Doctor could make out three other heads poking up curiously at the edge of the dock.

"What's with you and the kids movies all of a sudden?" He chuckled, reaching out a hand for Nemo themselves. He thought at them, gently this time, and they beamed a sharp toothed smile.

  
  


The Doctor opened the TARDIS doors with a snap of his fingers, and the fish folk with their tails in a tangle leapt from the opening down to the watery planet below. A dozen others came to greet them, hands brushing and faces nuzzling against each other as they spoke.

"Not even a thank you, how d'ya like that?" Donna leaned against the opposite side of the doorway with a smirk. 

"They thanked you just fine I think," he replied with a grin of his own.

"So you still running around then?" She asked. "Same as always?"

"Well… give or take three faces and a couple new friends…" he said. 

"Get to be ginger yet?" She chuckled.

"No, a blonde actually," he said. 

"So why are you back like this?" She asked, gesturing to him.

"Had a bit of time between regenerations, and well, it was you so I figured… one more go round," he shrugged. 

"That's the daftest thing I've ever heard," she snorted.

"Recognize me easier this way!"

"I wasn't supposed to recognize you, you idiot!"

"You never appreciate anything I do," he sighed dramatically, and she smiled.

"Yeah I do. And you know it." She gave his arm a squeeze.

They stepped away from the doors which he closed with a snap. He ran his hands over the control panel and Donna leaned nearby.

"I don't think I like the new look, it seems so… sad."

"I'm allowed to be sad once in awhile, and I wasn't sad all the time," he replied. "For a bit there I mean… but anyway."

He shot her a glance, hopeful. 

"We make a good team," he said. "And now that you can come back I mean… well… would you want to?"

"No, you idiot," she said. "I've got kids, I can't just go off."

"You have kids?" He squeaked.

"Surprised you didn't keep tabs on me with your outer space spying gear, I know you have it, yes I have kids. It's been a long, long time since I've seen you or haven't you noticed?"

"Time's a funny subject for me, people seem to… take it differently than I do," he tried not to sound too sad about it.

"You know, I can't just go off on adventures again…" she said, and he nodded. Then she grinned. "But… I'm really due for a vacation. Think you could swing that? Medusa Cascade? Alpha Centauri? Whatcha think?"

The Doctor smiled and started plugging in coordinates. "For you? I think I can manage."

He rested his hand on the lever and breathed out a sigh like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"One."


End file.
